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There was a time when I spent most of my day posting about bundles, to the extent that I didn’t actually play any new games at all. I’d just list the contents of whatever bundle landed in my inbox, embed a video and check that the ‘pay what you want’ offer actually let people submit less than a dollar. Then I’d hit the publish button and move onto the next big thing. Which would be another bundle. I thought all of that was in my past but the Super BR Jam has caught my eye, with a decent set of commercial titles for anyone paying more than $5 and the results of the jam (now finished) available whatever the price paid. Dungeonland, Magicka, The Showdown Effect and Knights of Pen and Paper all have Paradox in common, and plenty of people probably own them already, but the standout is Qasir al-Wasat, which I wish I’d pointed more eyes toward when I played the demo.

Here’s a video promoting the bundle, with information about the charity that will benefit from takings.

I’m Brazilian and I don’t care for any of the games that Brazilians apparently like. Once, I read an article on Brazilian Kotaku about how one of those games would be opening Brazilian servers (can’t remember which one – LoL, I think, it was over a year ago). The Brazilians comments on that article were exactly the same as you’d see in any English language article complaining them, except that they referred to them as “other Brazilians” or “those Brazilians”. There was a certain hope that with “those Brazilians” migrating to the BR servers they would be able to play on the US servers without being hassled.

I find it wasteful to support charities that concentrate on helping people lucky enough to have been born in the richest region of the world. USA has 5% of the world’s population and accounts for about 1/4 of the world’s wealth, it can provide for it’s sick children.

The charity this bundle supports seems to provide education for children in a developing country. This is a goal with a lasting positive effect on their lives. I’m all for that.

I liked the one Humble bundle when they were collecting money for building water infrastructure in Africa.

I do like what EFF is doing but again, it’s US-centric and falls outside of my realm of interest.

I understand if it doesn’t grab you personally, but the EFF is doing really globally important work: The utter trainwreck of the IP law system does its part to impede economic development and equality, beyond just impoverishing public culture.

Yes, the work EFF does is relevant globally and these issues are important.
I do however think that good internet legislation has a bigger chance to flourish and spread all over the world through European efforts. Here various internet freedom initiatives can gather serious political backing and EU has already set a few precedents of stopping ridiculous business practices of US corporations.

For example, we can now force Facebook to delete data from their servers.

I think you underestimate the value of the work done by the EFF. The groundwork they’ve done for decades and continue to do is influential in the development of european online rights as well.

By all means , I’m grateful western europe legislation is forging ground for personal rights in computing and online spaces, and if you’d rather donate locally that’s totally sensible, but I think describing the work the EFF is involved in as of lesser importance is a mistake.

As for medicine in the US, that seems like more of a problem for the US to solve, to me. We have the resources, and no one else can really fix it for us. I don’t find Child’s Play to be a significant force for that anyway and so I spend those charity dollars elsewhere, myself.

A lot of people are grumpy about Childs Play because it’s connected to Penny Arcade, whose figure head likes to put his foot in his mouth in various configurations. There’s also the fact that it’s kind of a US-centric charity, and I guess it would be nice if there was more variety like I don’t know, Amnesty, Red Cross, etc.

It’s also worth remembering that it began because someone decided to point the finger at gaming as “Training Children to kill” and 10 years and $20M later I think the point has been made (he retracted his story long ago) and much good done for gaming as well as for sick kids.

Perhaps often forget that charity (and ‘aid’ which is much the same thing) operate for many reasons – there’s the obvious one (helping the intended target) but there’s the reflection of that (improving the image of the provider) and there’s the tangential one (charity money is real money!).

For example. 50% of US Food Aid is spent on shipping – mostly with US shipping companies I suspect – so the US looks good AND makes money from ‘charity’ to other countries (and it’s not alone – most countries operate ‘aid’ on the same basis)

I know it operates outside the US, but three hospitals in the UK and one in Egypt can’t really be considered international except by the most generous of definitions. Mlaskus also has a point that basic survival, education, human rights etc perhaps are more pressing issues than toys and games for hospitals, as admirable a cause as the latter may be.

I seem to have been a bit unfair towards Humble, I didn’t know you can support Watsi or the water charity right now. The main bundle is still limited to the US-centric charities but Weekly and the store have other charities available.

You are an invisible demon, summoned by a sorcerer to kill three of his enemies. Naturally, you have ulterior motives for accepting this summons. You can creep around carefully to avoid noise, or run and risk attracting guards with the sound of your footprints. You can kill the guards, but their blood splashes you and makes you more visible. Or you can stand silently by and listen to the guards’ conversations.

The game uses musical cues instead of sound effects; when a guards hears you, a short string sequence plays. When guards talk to each other, each is made audible as a musical note played by a different instrument. So you can still hear guards talking just off-screen despite no voice acting.

And the artwork is gorgeous. Drawing on the rich history of Persian art, it’s full of lavish detail and bright colours.

I highly recommend it.

Edit: if you’re only interested in this one, it’s on sale right now for £1.62 from Desura.

Oh my goodness, I remember Qasir Al Wasat. Fantastic game, but man, is it difficult.
The only complaint I have is that some of the puzzles were really not fun. The alchemy one was neat, but the spinny circle one that’s shown in the trailer (and repeated several times throughout the game) is just tedious.
Oh, and don’t get me started on the maze that loops and teleports you…

The main stealth gameplay is exceptionally well designed and extremely fun, though.